The TU Dres­den is one of ele­ven Ger­man uni­ver­si­ties that were iden­ti­fied as an “excel­lence uni­ver­sity”. TUD has about 36.500 stu­dents and almost 5319 employees, 507 pro­fes­sors among them, and, thus, is the lar­gest uni­ver­sity in Sax­ony, today.

Having been com­mit­ted to sci­en­ces and the engi­nee­ring before the reuni­fi­ca­tion of Ger­many, TU Dres­den now is a multi-disci­pline uni­ver­sity, also offe­ring huma­nities and social sci­en­ces as well as medi­cine.

Rese­arch Asso­ciate

(Sub­ject to per­so­nal qua­li­fi­ca­tion employees are remu­ne­ra­ted accord­ing to salary group E 13 TV-L)
The posi­tion is to begin as soon as pos­si­ble. The posi­tion is initi­ally limi­ted until 31 Decem­ber 2021 with an optio­nal exten­sion and ent­ails 65% of the full­time wee­kly hours. The period of employ­ment is gover­ned by the Fixed Term Rese­arch Con­tracts Act (Wis­sen­schafts­zeit­ver­trags­ge­setz - WissZeitVG). The posi­tion offers the chance to obtain fur­ther aca­de­mic qua­li­fi­ca­tion.
Dr. Ster­ne­ckert’s group uses pati­ent spe­ci­fic indu­ced plu­ri­po­tent stem (iPS) cells to gene­rate models of neu­ro­de­ge­ne­ra­tive disea­ses, inclu­ding Par­kin­son’s disease (PD) and amyo­tro­phic late­ral scle­ro­sis (ALS). Using a com­bi­na­tion of gene edi­t­ing, pro­teo­mics, and small mole­cu­les, we aim at under­stan­ding the mecha­nism(s) of patho­ge­ne­sis and iden­ti­fy­ing novel tre­at­ments.

Work­ing field:

The aim of this PhD pro­ject is to eva­luate LRRK2 as a the­ra­peu­tic tar­get for Par­kin­son’s disease. Pri­mary aims of the pro­ject include the genera­tion of iPS cells, disease model­ling, tes­ting drug can­di­da­tes, and iden­ti­fy­ing the mecha­nism of patho­ge­ne­sis. This pro­ject is highly col­la­bo­ra­tive and will be per­for­med in close coope­ra­tion with Prof. Tho­mas Gas­ser. It is spon­so­red by a grant from the Deut­sche For­schungs­ge­mein­schaft.

Require­ments:

We seek highly moti­va­ted, ambi­tious, and talen­ted sci­en­tists to join our enthu­si­astic and col­la­bo­ra­tive team in an out­stan­ding sci­en­ti­fic envi­ron­ment. We expect the fol­lo­wing: an out­stan­ding uni­ver­sity degree (Mas­ter or equi­va­lent) in Bio­logy, Bio­me­di­cine or simi­lar. Signi­fi­cant expe­ri­ence with cell cul­ture is requi­red. Expe­ri­ence with mole­cu­lar/bio­che­mi­cal methods, inclu­ding Wes­tern blot­ting, plas­mid con­struc­tion/pre­pa­ra­tion, and immu­no­fluo­re­scence are very stron­gly pre­fer­red. Expe­ri­ence with iPS cell cul­ture and/or CRISPR/Cas9 media­ted gene edi­t­ing are hel­pful. In addi­tion, app­li­cants are requi­red to have the abi­lity to work in an inter­na­tio­nal team; inter- and mul­ti­di­sci­pli­nary thin­king; high moti­va­tion; an inte­gra­tive and coope­ra­tive per­so­na­lity with excel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and social skills; flu­ency in Eng­lish – writ­ten and oral.

What we of­fer:

Rese­arch Envi­ron­ment:
The Cen­ter for Rege­ne­ra­tive The­ra­pies Dres­den (CRTD) is a rese­arch insti­tute and Clus­ter of Excel­lence at the Tech­ni­sche Uni­ver­si­tät Dres­den, com­pri­sing 18 core rese­arch groups. Embra­cing these core groups is the CRTD Mem­bers net­work, an inter­di­sci­pli­nary orga­ni­za­tion of around 80 princi­pal inves­ti­ga­tors loca­ted at other rese­arch insti­tu­tes in Dres­den inclu­ding, the Carl Gus­tav Carus Faculty of Medi­cine and the Max Planck Insti­tute of Mole­cu­lar Cell Bio­logy and Gene­tics.
Our mis­sion is to under­stand the bio­logy of stem cells and phy­sio­lo­gi­cal and patho­lo­gi­cal tis­sue and organ repair in order to deve­lop new tre­at­ments for neu­ro­de­ge­ne­ra­tive disea­ses, such as Alz­hei­mer's disease and Par­kin­son's disease, haema­to­lo­gi­cal disea­ses, such as leukemia, meta­bo­lic disea­ses, such as dia­be­tes, and bone disea­ses. Our sci­en­tists are encou­ra­ged to think out­side of the box and to explore untap­ped areas of know­ledge in the rege­ne­ra­tive poten­tial of the human body, and to apply this know­ledge to pre­vent or reverse disease pro­ces­ses.
To achieve our aims, we stron­gly sup­port inter­di­sci­pli­nary rese­arch, with rese­ar­chers from diverse rese­arch insti­tu­tes wit­hin the Dres­den cam­pus, with exper­tise ran­ging from the bio­logy of cells and tis­sues to bio­ma­te­ri­als to nano­en­gi­nee­ring. CRTD has become a major dri­ving force on cam­pus and is ready to meet the chal­len­ges of moving new inter­ven­tio­nal stra­te­gies from bench to bedside.
App­li­ca­ti­ons from women are par­ti­cu­larly wel­come. The same app­lies to people with disa­bi­li­ties.

Refe­rence to data pro­tec­tion: Your data pro­tec­tion rights, the pur­pose for which your data will be pro­ces­sed, as well as fur­ther infor­ma­tion about data pro­tec­tion is avail­able to you on the web­site: https://tu-dresden.de/karriere/datenschutzhinweis

Make an Ap­plic­a­tion

1. Cover letter, indicating current and future research interests and career goals;
2. Description of research experience and accomplishments, including summary of previous research done during your master thesis (max. 2 pages);
3. List of publications, if applicable;
4. CV, including copies of degree certificates and transcript of grades (i.e. the official list of coursework including your grades);
5. Two letters of recommendation or contact information for two references, including current supervisor.